Murray is bidding to capture the trophy for a third time, and the Scot picked up from where he left off against Mahut by asserting his authority early on against Matosevic.

The No. 1 seed matched his Australian opponent in holding his opening service game - and then made his move in the third to seize the break as two consecutive wide backhand slices from Matosevic handed him the advantage.

The players were taking longer than usual on serve as the wind began to pick up, but Murray was glad it was not rain which caused havoc to his second round tie on Wednesday.

The crowd witnessed some Murray magic in the fourth game as the Scot made a winner on the stretch down the line, and then perfected a lob to leave Matosevic looking up to the heavens and wondering what he was doing wrong on court.

Murray forced plenty of errors from his opponent, and while Matosevic cut a frustrated figure, he failed to see the funny side of a ball girl attempting to catch a plastic bag which blew onto court as a consequence of the wind.

Once Murray had the cushion of the second break after the fifth game, Matosevic was unable to make an impression, leaving the top seed to cruise to the opening set in a quarter of an hour.

Yet another error from Matosevic gifted the early break to Murray in the second set, and some great defence from the Scot ensured he consolidated it in the second game - which saw Matosevic throw his racket to the ground in anger.

Matosevic - famous for knocking over Rafael Nadal's water bottles at the Monte Carlo Masters - stuck with the US Open champion to halve the deficit, but the crowd were treated to powerful serves from Murray - one at 131mph - and some more brilliance as he chased down a shot at the net when he was nearly on Matosevic's side of the court.

Murray looked as though he was going to cruise to the victory thanks to another break in the fifth game, but Matosevic recovered one of the breaks back and closed the gap to 4-2.

However, it was Murray's turn to recover as he flashed a forehand cross court winner beyond Matosevic at the net - aided by a flick of the net chord - to restore his three-game lead, before wrapping up the win with a love service game.

Murray's last-eight opponent will be Benjamin Becker after the German saw off seventh seed Alexandr Dolgopolov 7-6(5) 7-5.